KULIM: The dramatic crude oil price plunge would not slow down the growth of the solar industry in the short term despite the current excess of capacity in the global market, according to an industry player.
However, James Hughes the chief executive officer of First Solar Inc, the leading global provider of comprehensive photovoltaic energy (PV), said the industry remains cautious on the long-term impact of the crude price to the energy sector.
"It is a complicated situation as it will depend on how long is the crude price plunge trend will last, how correlated natural gas prices are in the global basis based on the changes of the crude price plunge and the what policy actually governments take," he said.
He pointed out that one of the challenges is that there are significant subsidies for the oil based liquid fuel and subsidies for the generation of electricity from thermal generation.
Yet, Hughes said while the cheaper fuel price would lead to a cheaper thermal electricity generation cost, it may also create positive impact to the solar industry as some governments would take the opportunity to eliminate fuel subsidies.
As such, he said this would lead to a more attractive environment for solar industry.
"India would be the largest immediate future market for solar industry following its government decision to revoke fuel subsidies and we would see more products manufactured from our plant in Kulim to be shipped to India," he told a new conference at the celebration of First Solar achievement in reaching 10 gigawatts (GW) solar electricity from its panels installed in 35 countries worldwide, yesterday.
During the ceremony, Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir had also launched the company's mono-crystalline manufacturing facility at its plant in Kulim Hi-Tech Park here.
Present were First Solar Global senior vice-president Tymen De Jong and state Science, Innovation and Hi-Tech Committee chairman Nor Sabrina Mohd Noor.
Meanwhile, De Jong said the following the success in reaching the 10GW milestone, it has set a target to become the first solar manufacturer to achieve the 20GW in less then four years from now.
"Now we are producing over 50,000 modules everyday and soon that will increase to nearly 60,000 modules per day," he said, adding that its facility in Kulim was the biggest contributor to the company's worldwide production with 24 out of the 30 production lines.
On another matter, James said the company fully backs Kedah government's proposal to build Kulim International Airport (KXP) since besides seaport to transport its products, having a new airport in the vicinity would further facilitate the movement of its technical experts from one country to another.